Oregon’s Most Violent Cities and Towns: New FBI Crime Data

Portland may be getting more violent. The number of murders rose 46 percent and the number of rapes increased 11 percent in the city last year. That is according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which released its 2014 crime statistics yesterday, breaking down data on a state by state -- and community - basis. Nationally in 2014, the estimated number of violent crimes decreased 0.2 percent when compared with 2013 figures.

In 2014, Portland was home to 2,911 violent crimes - the most of any city or town in Oregon and more than one-third of the state's total violent crimes.

Sgt. Peter Simpson, public information officer for the Portland Police Bureau, told GoLocal that that while the number of murders and rapes in the city rose last year, there were seasons to feel safe in the city. He called the rise in homicides, in particular, a misleading figure he attributed the city’s high number of violent crimes with its large population.

“When you look at the homicide rate, it’s kind of a false positive,” Simpson said. “There was a sharp decline in homicides in 2013 after the rate had held steady for a few years, and this year the figure returned to that rate.”

There were a total of 6,790 violent crimes known to federal law enforcement last year in Oregon, of the violent crimes committed in Oregon last year, 4,105 were aggravated assaults, 1,818 were robberies, 815 sexual assaults and 52 were murders.

SEE SLIDES BELOW: See the 50 Most Violent Towns and Cities in Oregon Below

Kris Henning, Chair of the Criminology and Criminal Justice Department at Portland State University, told GoLocal that this data allows police departments to compare their statistics with similar cities around the country.

“Cities have a list of comparators that they are similar to and keep track of those statistics compared to their own,” Henning said, noting that Tuscon, Arizona and Sacramento, California are on Oregon’s list. “There’s some real value in that because it allows them to see where their levels should be. Otherwise, you just have what happened last year compared to the year before, and that doesn’t always tell you a lot.”

By the Numbers

Bill Fugate, public information officer for the Oregon State Police, said that The Oregon State Police CJIS Division tracks crimes in each city in Oregon on a monthly basis and sends that data to the FBI.

Fugate said the FBI data is distributed to each city’s police department, and the individual department decide whether changes are needed as a result of the data.

Henning said that departments also can use the data to evaluate how efficient they are at solving crimes. “There’s a clearance rate, which measures how many crimes led to at least one arrest against the total crimes committed in a city,” Henning said. “It’s not a perfect measure, but it allows departments to look at data from other cities and see if there are ways to increase their clearance rate.”

In Gresham, which witnessed 549 violent crimes in 2014, there were increases of two percent in the number aggravated assaults, 11 percent in the number of larceny-thefts, and 32 percent in motor vehicle thefts.

In Salem, there were eight percent more aggravated assaults and eight percent more larceny-thefts in 2014 than in 2013, while Vancouver saw an increase of 67 percent in murders in 2014, along with increases of six percent and three percent., in rapes and robberies, respectively.

Baker City

Baker City Struggles with Assaults

Baker City, the city with the most violent crimes per capita in the state, had a total of 61 violent crimes, with a population of just 9,762. Of those crimes, 56 were assaults, four robberies and one sexual assault.

Lt. Dustin Newman, Patrol Supervisor with the Baker City Police Department, told GoLocal he was surprised by the city’s high crime ranking, especially considering Baker City was named the safest community in Oregon by Safewise last year. He said the city’s ranking might be skewed by its relatively small size.

Newman also said that the Department keeps a close watch on assaults during their patrol and that the Department use reports such as these to help monitor problem areas in Baker City.

“Yeah we are definitely cognizant of that, it’s something we definitely look for,” Newman said of aggravated assaults. “Whenever we see a problem or a high number like that, we’d like to see it be zero, but that isn’t realistic. We try to keep our eyes open and be where we are most needed.”